Vegas dreams go for broke

Jobs dry up in oasis that once lured transplants

September 06, 2009|By Ashley Powers, Tribune Newspapers

LAS VEGAS — An arctic evening in Minnesota: Tracy Bridges shivered near her apartment window, weary of snowstorms and slender paychecks. She was 27, making $23,000 dealing blackjack at an Indian casino in Duluth, Minn., and couldn't shake thoughts of those dealers who had flown in from Las Vegas.

They were teaching the casino staffers and talked about high-rollers and tipsy celebrities, about the huge tips dealers pocketed. "I could do that," she thought.

That winter of 1997, Bridges quit her job, packed her Chevy Lumina and sped off, the frozen Red River fading in her rear-view mirror. Five days later, she arrived in Las Vegas in darkness, the hot Mojave air flushing her cheeks, the skyline blazing with neon and possibility.

"Vegas," she thought. "Wow."

Bridges was part of a pilgrimage of aspiration that made Nevada the nation's fastest-growing state and Vegas one of its fastest-growing metropolitan areas. They came from New Jersey and Mississippi, from Los Angeles and San Diego, chasing the Vegas Dream: A good job, no college degree required. A cheap house, little money down. A seemingly secure niche in the middle class.

Bridges was able to build a life that made her a star at class reunions. She -- like thousands of others -- didn't know it would all crumble, quickly and spectacularly, in the manner of a casino implosion.

Vegas' economic boom seemed unstoppable. The Strip kept adding hotels, and suburbs chewed through the desert. In 2005 alone, the region's largest water district added more than 24,000 accounts.

The number of job-holders more than doubled from 1990 to 2005, and still employers had to compete for workers.

That same year, metropolitan Las Vegas issued 39,012 permits for new homes.

What Hollywood is to actors, Vegas became to casino workers. They flocked from riverboat casinos near Chicago, Indian casinos near Seattle, resorts along the East and Gulf coasts.

Tracy Bridges, then Tracy Scott, met a fellow dealer, Michael Bridges, who had left Missouri and its assembly lines. They married and settled into a 1,600-square-foot home.

Jobs were plentiful. Bored with yours? Head to another casino, or another profession. Tracy Bridges flitted from making $60,000 a year at the Venetian, mainly in tips, to selling real estate. She worked as a cocktail waitress at Santa Fe Station, a dealer at the Hard Rock hotel-casino, a server at Timbers Bar & Grill.

The Bridges bought a van, a time share in Maui. They had a daughter, whom they eventually enrolled in a $300-a-month preschool. Nothing seemed out of reach.

In 2006, nearly 39 million tourists poured into Las Vegas, nearly twice as many as in 1990. The median home price reached a new high of $315,000.

But even then, little-noticed cracks were undermining the Vegas economy, with over-extended homeowners defaulting on exotic loans. Bank-owned signs began dotting cul-de-sacs.

Las Vegas, which had led the nation in growth, was about to lead it in foreclosures. A glut of bad mortgages and empty homes began driving down prices even as building charged ahead on the Strip.

Thousands of new hotel rooms were planned, and it was expected that all those new jobs would lure new workers, who would buy newly constructed homes and shop at newly opened Target and Trader Joe's stores. The formula had always worked before.

But in a town where employers once competed for workers, job-hunters now competed with one another. In 2008, with the national recession draining 401(k)s, undermining home equity and discouraging tourism, gambling revenue tumbled almost 10 percent in Clark County. The casinos laid off thousands, and, by one estimate, the region's population shrank.

Late last year, Tracy Bridges got in a tiff with her manager at a bar and left her job as a waitress. But flitting from job to job wasn't an option anymore. There were none to be had.

She found holding onto her lifestyle was like holding onto a fistful of water. For six months, her $1,200 mortgage payment was late. She sometimes hid shopping bags from her husband, Michael.

One warm night this summer, after she had tucked in her daughters, she kissed Michael good night. It was time for what passed as work.

She hoisted open the garage door and placed a small cardboard box into her Dodge Caravan. Bridges drove, lowered the window and tossed one rolled-up Avon cosmetics catalog after another. Thwack. Thwack. She continued throwing for 15 minutes. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

She tucks her Avon business card in each catalog; enough people place orders with her that she keeps selling cosmetics even after landing a part-time waitress gig. Once, a man called to complain about the unwanted catalog, and she explained how, for months, she'd fruitlessly applied to casinos. His tone softened: He, too, had lost his job.